Free Image Editing Software

You probably need to perform some basic image editing from time to time, either for your website, your marketing materials, or your personal projects (fixing your sister’s red-eye in the holiday photos, for instance). You might be aware of some fantastic image editing software called Adobe Photoshop – which I use and highly recommend to those who are interested in professional image editing or who work with a lot of images. You might not fall into those categories, however, and might be looking for a simpler option. One option is Adobe Photoshop Elements – a more consumer-oriented version of Photoshop. There are also tons of other great image editing programs out there, and many are available for no cost. Here are two I use which you might want to try:

Paint.NET – This program has many of the features of professional software, such as transparent layers, artistic filters, histogram and curves adjustment tools, etc, without the price tag or computer resource requirements. You can save files in all the most common formats.

Picasa – This Google-created desktop application makes the basic fixes to images – especially photos – quick and easy. Red-eye removal, color and contrast adjustment and cropping are all very simple to accomplish. The program is also good for keeping track of large collections of images, even if they are spread all over your computer and makes sharing images (via email or online albums) a simple process as well.

About the Author

Heather Floyd has been involved in website and software development for almost 20 years and developing with the Umbraco CMS since 2006. She specializes in information architecture and development efficiency. In addition, she has originated and contributed to various Umbraco and .Net-related open source projects. Heather speaks internationally about Umbraco and is a founder of the NYC Umbraco Meetup group. She currently provides development consulting as well as business strategy.